Greetings again from the darkness. For those who take pride in their ability to keep track of body counts in movies, I can only say, best of luck with this one. Boom. Bang. Punch. Kick. Stab. Choke. Flip. Our hero, acting alone, uses every available attack to neutralize armies, SWAT teams, trained security teams, and greedy scumbags … all in the name of “protecting the hive”. OK, it’s mostly for revenge for causing the death of “the only person who took care of me.”
Director David Ayer (END OF WATCH 2012, SUICIDE SQUAD 2016) and screenwriter Kurt Wimmer (SALT, 2010) are very much at home in the action-violence genre, and adding the king of cinematic hand-to-hand combat, Jason Statham, to the mix can only mean more action and more fighting and more violence. There is no reason to critique a movie that delivers exactly what it sets out to deliver to an audience that expects exactly that.
Statham is in prime form as Adam Clay, a beekeeper on a farm owned by retired teacher Elise Parker (Phylicia Rashad, CREED). When a phishing scam drains her bank accounts, including that of the non-profit she administers, Clay reacts to the subsequent tragedy by tracking down the culprits of the scheme. Tech fraudsters are easy targets because we all despise them, and the film plays that up by exaggerating the obnoxious nature of those involved. A miscast Josh Hutcherson (THE HUNGER GAMES) plays Derek Danforth, an entitled little bleep who skateboards in the office to his next massage and wears outlandish outfits befitting a person desperate for attention. Adding to the psychological drama is FBI Agent Verona Parker (Emmy Raver-Lampman, “The Umbrella Academy”), the daughter of Elise, the woman who put Clay on his mission of reckoning.
Additional supporting roles include Bobby Naderi as Verona’s FBI partner, Jemma Redgrave as the President, a brief appearance by Minnie Driver as the FBI director (she takes three quick phone calls), and Oscar winner Jeremy Irons as Wallace Westwyld, the retired agent charged with keeping douchey Derek safe. The hook here is that beekeeper Clay is actually a retired secret agent known as “the Beekeeper”, and in one of the oddest sequences, his replacement (a wild character inspired by Prince?) brings a Gatling gun to try and end Clay once and for all. The film is silly and absurd, and right up the alley of those who embrace Statham’s stoic bulldozer of a man.
Opens in theaters on January 12, 2024
Movie Reviews from the Dark 
Hi David.
I’m so hungry for action movies that I’ll be watching this one. What can I say!
Hope you are doing well and I wish I was (it’s been a very tough 2023 and I’m apparently not done yet). Hoping for a better 2024 at the cinema and at home. Regards
Ray, I’m sorry to hear you are having a rough spell. Here’s hoping you have a happy 2024! And if you are looking for action, this one is wall to wall. Enjoy.
Another great review! I skipped this one in theatres. I really don’t like David Ayer and his style of making movies. I hated his version of “Suicide Squad” that did little justice to the Joker. Here’s my take on that film:
Agree with you … not a fan of SUICIDE SQUAD
Good review. I felt that this movie was fun and enjoyable. It was a bit to light on its story and definitely could’ve been fleshed out with more substance in its story and characters, but it was still a good way to escape into the classic “one man army” trope in the action subgenre. Nothing fantastical grand, but still worth the watch.
I agree with you. For what it is, it’s fine. The director has an older movie called END OF WATCH. If you haven’t seen it, I recommend you track it down and give it a go.